Up to 2,400 people can be held in a new residential center that U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will use to house immigrant families caught crossing into the U.S., the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
The South Texas Family Residential Center will open in November in Dilley, Texas, approximately 70 miles southwest of San Antonio, and is reserved for immigrants found traveling with their children. Officials told the Associated Press that it will initially hold 480 people, but that number will eventually increase to 2,400.
It's the fourth such facility to open in recent months, and serves to expedite the process to have immigrants returned to their home countries. Other centers have opened in Karnes City; Artesia, New Mexico; and Leesport, Pennsylvania.
The announcement comes just days after human rights advocates spoke out against the expansion of family detention facilities.
"We are very concerned to see the continued expansion of family detention, which we know does not work," Katharina Obser of the Women's Refugee Commission told MSNBC on Friday.
After human rights groups toured the facility in Karnes City, Texas last week, the groups claimed on Thursday that families aren't receiving adequate access to legal services and that conditions are "taking a toll on detained children," reported MSNBC.
"We heard directly from mothers who told us stories that show their children's health is being harmed. Children have been slowly losing weight since their detention began," Adriana Piñon, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas, told reporters.
However, ICE spokesperson Carl Rusnok said in a statement that those claims are "largely unsubstantiated," adding that "children are provided three meals per day, and health snacks are available 24/7."
The facility in Karnes even provides play rooms, access to social workers, a computer lab for families and teachers from a nearby charter school who instruct the kids, according to MSNBC.
Obser said it's not a matter of lack of food that's causing the children to lose weight.
"Many simply do not want to eat food they are unaccustomed to," she stated.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimates that more than 66,000 family units entered the country in the past year, MSNBC revealed.
